Here’s a photo of Daniel, just one-month old, wearing his ghost hat for Halloween back in 2007:

 

Here is a photo of Daniel, just a month past his first birthday, dressed as a penguin for Halloween last year:

 

In contrast, here’s Daniel, just a month past his second birthday, dressed as Yoda for Halloween last week:

Growing and growing and growing!

Daniel was Yoda for Halloween — pictures forthcoming once I have the time to adjust the file size and such — and I was impressed that he didn’t mess with the Yoda ears/headpiece/hat-thingy while trick-or-treating with his older cousin around my parents’ neighborhood.  During the wonderful lunchtime Halloween party hosted by friends in Celina, Texas, Daniel kept pulling off the Yoda hat whenever I would put it on his head.

What everybody noticed was just how big Daniel was getting — taller, slimmer — in his transformation from a toddler to a very young preschooler.   Last year’s Halloween picture (when Daniel was in his penguin costume) is very different from this year’s Halloween picture.  Last year, the nimbus of babyhood was very much still around him.  This year, it’s gone, replaced by a funny, fun-loving, curious little boy.

Yes — I’ll get that photo up… after I catch up on grading!  YIKES.

I knew it was coming, but I never had the time to download all of those little leftover files (like photos) on my free Geocities page that I’ve had since 1997.

I’ve been using my free site as a web-based storage space, throwing .jpg’s on there every once and awhile.  Until I started using WordPress’ native file storage function (as well as my paid Rowena’s World site), all of my photos here in I Am the Lizard Queen have been linked from my Geocities page.

Now that the original “Rowena’s World” Geocities page is gone, folks will see some broken image links, where pictures used to be.  Hopefully — when I have the time! — I’ll restore them, one by one.  But until then, I apologize for the broken links.

Hmmm… gosh, remember those interminably long web addresses the original Geocities sites had? 

After we as a class went  over how to write a poetry explication today, one of my students exclaimed, “Oh my gosh, I’ve never been this excited about writing an English paper in my entire LIFE!”

Here it is, less than a couple of hours away from midnight, and I durn near FORGOT that today, October 20, is the National Day on Writing.

Considering my workload, my forgetfulness would be excusable except that 1) I’m a member of NCTE, the non-profit that organized and championed the National Day on Writing, and 2) I actually submitted to its National Gallery of Writing.

This is what happens when everything that you do at work pretty much smooshes all together and then bleeds into your at-home life.

WHAT FUN!

You know when you are on too many committees when, in the middle of the meeting of one of them, you turn to your immediate boss and ask, “Umm… just what sub-committee am I on, by the way?” — and you’ve been on aforementioned sub-committee on, oh, for the past two weeks… but you forgot.

That episode of forgetfulness happened about — oh — nine hours ago.  My dean looked at me, as if wondering if I was kidding or not, and when she realized that I wasn’t, she reminded me that I was on the League for Innovation Student Lit Competition sub-committee (that, actually, I was the only member IN tha sub-committee), and I said, “Ohhhh… that.”

Just another reminder that the “I Am Sucking in the Balancing Act” that I mentioned in my October 6 blog entry is yea verily the truth.

Another reminder:  One of my students last week, after a normal office visit going over her essay, turned to me with a different air about her and announced, “Now… let’s talk about your hair.”

I immediately burst out laughing because I knew what was coming: she’s a professional hair stylist in an upscale salon, and so I just KNEW that she would mention sometime this semester about the horrible state of my thin, limp, sloppily growing-out-of-a-haircut, hot mess of a hair.

“You never do anything with your hair,” she observed.

“That’s right — I never do.  I’m just glad that it’s CLEAN.”

While my committee work is continuing — and will likely be permanent, or at least rather long term, as they are all planning committees for division and campus-wide programs and initiative — I can at least scratch one project off my To-Do list: the Common Book Discussion Panel that I’ve been planning since I was approved of Student Life funding this past summer.  The approval came in June, I invited my panelists in August and have worked — in collaboration with a Student Life staff member — to organize the event since August, through early October, and we held our panel this past October 15 to a nearly full house. 

I was trying hard not to show that I felt like a nervous wreck because I was moderating a panel of academics and administrators from local colleges and universities in front of 1) my college’s president, 2) two of my college’s vice-presidents, and 3) my dean.

The panel went well but — whew! — I am glad that VERY BIG ITEM on my to-do list is done.  For I have  — YAY — the SKD Literary Journal to put together and get published by the end of this month… which reminds me.  I have to submit the new SKD Membership list to the national office in Alabama so that the new members can officially compete for the SKD scholarships and awards (deadline mid-November) AND plan the SKD New Members Induction Ceremony.  Oh, and the SKD Better World’s Book Drive and and and…

Can I just say how quaint that many of my students think the only thing full-time faculty members do is TEACH?

Two things I can say about my job: 1) I am paid decently, and 2) I am never bored.

Now, if only I don’t embarrass myself in front of my dean again – at least, not for the next 24 hours or so. 

I mentioned earlier that, upon being officially permanent full-time faculty, my duties and responsibilities as such seemed to have increased exponentially, dropping unannounced from the sky like a Heffalump on Piglet.

I think — I THINK — I’m on six committees now.  Um… 1) Common Book Project Committee, 2) Core Curriculum Steering Committee, 3) English Program Committee, 4) Asian & Middle Eastern Studies Committee, 5) Arts and Literature Program Committee, 6) English Department Website Redesign Committee.

I think that’s it, for now.  God, I HOPE that’s it for a long while, now.

What with all of that Institutional Service committments, my mind is reeling with the seven — count ‘em SEVEN — sections of freshman and sophomore English classes that I’m teaching — my primary faculty responsibility —  as well as the 25 required Professional Development credits I’m supposed to rack up for this academic year. 

On top of that, I’m still the faculty advisor of an English Honor Society that I’m trying to revive from being “barely breathing” to “alive and kicking” — mostly by bribing potential members with “Hey, membership has its benefits — like CASH AWARDS and CASH SCHOLARSHIPS!!!” 

I’m still optimistic when it comes to getting that society’s literary journal off the ground, but, three semesters and two aborted issues later, it’s still slim pickin’s when it comes to submissions.  Yet, hope springs eternal.  Either I’m an idealist, or I’m dumb.  (Let’s hope for the latter.)  To say the least, the “Student Service” part of my job responsibilities is more than covered.

But what has happened so far, heading towards the midterm of the fall semester, is that I’ve been unable to continue my work responsibilities once I’m at home — that is, grading.  Daniel turning two has increased his mobility and his curiosity as exponentially as my job duties.  Gone are the three-hour stretches of nap-time on the weekends, as well as ten-to-eleven hours of nighttime sleep (when I could reliably fit in grading time at home).  Lately, Daniel’s been falling asleep past 9pm, and waking up around 6:30am — he’d open his bedroom door, shake the baby gate barring his exit, and announce calmly, “Out.”

I don’t recall a time, in my ten years of teaching, that I’ve apologized to my students as much as I have had to this semester — for being late on grading.  It bothers me A LOT, that I’ve been behind on grading, pretty much since the first essays have rolled in.  And, short of neglecting everything else at my job AND everything else at home, I don’t see that changing any time soon.

In short, this semester, I seem to seriously SUCK at the Balancing Act that is my working life and my home life.

Yeah, yeah… I know that’s nothing new, and that I’m not the only one in the world experiencing this.  I wish that realization made me feel better.

I said it before, and I’ll say it again — is it Thanksgiving yet?

And for the record: THANK GOD, for patient students! 

Nighty-night.